Freezing rain

I have heard about these storms hitting the Midwest, but I have never actually seen freezing rain. The concept doesn't even make sense to me. If temperatures are below freezing, and it's precipitating, why wouldn't it just snow? But I set out today in a cold drizzle that settled as droplets of clear ice on everything. Soon enough, the front end of my bike was covered in a frozen shell, and my coat and pants looked like I had been blasted with shaved ice. The rain made quick work of the snow-packed roads, too. Nine inches of new powder fell yesterday, so the shoulders were soft and deep. But the plow-scraped areas became as slick as hockey rinks. I made a solid effort to stay out of the path of traffic, even though it meant plowing my own path through several inches of ice-crusted snow. Such an interesting weather phenomenon, this freezing rain.

I have been feeling a little on edge lately. I think it's because this month I've increased my daily exercise routines from 1-2 hours to 2-4 hours. This has cut noticeably into my free time, but since I'm as yet unwilling to give up my other habits - you know, like blogging and sleeping - I feel like I'm constantly rushing around.

Also, my appetite's gone nutty. There doesn't seem to be enough carbs in all the land to fill me up. I'm trying to be conscientious about my food intake (after all, I'm not burning that many more calories) but the sugar cravings have broken me down more than once. Maybe SAD has returned, or maybe my body's just trying to figure out what it needs. I try to cover up the constant hungry feeling with caffeine, but that just makes me more edgy. I've actually snapped at people at work. Those kind of uncontrolled outbursts are rare for me.

Anyway, I'm off to bed to squeeze in the eight hours of unconsciousness. I noticed that my knees are pretty sore after the weekend's hike. I think sometime soon I need to take the bike out on some deep trails for a push-fest, build up the hike-a-bike muscles that will likely come in handy. But tomorrow, with a fresh coat of new snow expected, I hope to find some freezing rain-coated goodness.

14 comments:

Freezing rain is the worst. Just be glad that you had snow for it to fall on - it's worse when it's on bare pavement. Or when you get out after work or whatever and find your bike covered in a layer of ice and can't even unlock it...

Jill, the concept of freezing rain does not make sense to me either. But the solid ice cover on my car tells me it is real. It has been real for the past two days. I looked outside this morning and it was raining so I did not anticipate to find my car under pile of ice again, but I did....

You might try more "good" fats, like olive oil and nuts (almonds, walnuts), along with more complex carbs (apples, yams) - the combination might help blunt the insulin spike (and subsequent plunge, which results in hunger and grumpiness) you're getting from simpler carbs.

This is so interesting to me and yet so foreign - I have seen none of this that you are experiencing and if we DID have ice on the roads, we would not know what to do... period. In fact, the instructions would be:

Stay.off.the.road.

We just don't know how to handle that type of weather and conditions.

However, I believe by doubling your time on the road, you are probably expending a lot more calories than you think. LIsten to your body.

Water had some very interesting properties, it reaches maximum density slightly below freezing temperatures. In bodies of water there is a thermoclime, where the temperature suddenly drops, in the winter, as ice develops this thermoclime reverses so that the poor fishies don't freeze. This is part of the reason for freezsing rain. I have put a link to your blog on mine. "The Kodiak Perspective". I am also a bicycle rider. If you like my blog, I would appreciate a link, thanks. I hope you will enjoy reading mine as I have yours.